Come Undone
by Caelan
Summary: The events leading up to Future Max and Liz's idea that the only way the world is to survive is for their relationship to have never existed. Please Review
1. Chapter 1: The Land of the Dead

Title: Come Undone 

Author: Caelan 

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended and no profits generated. I'm just trying to clean up the mess that Jason Katims & friends made.

Rating: PG13

Feedback: Most appreciated. 

Summary: M / L 

"End of the World," always bothered me. Up until the last part of season two, Max and Liz were always portrayed as two very rational people. The problem I have then is what could have made them think that their relationship was out fault. So this is my attempt to answer that. 

Nine years after their wedding in Las Vegas, Khivar has launched a full scale assault on Earth. With the dreaded parasite scion, he is transforming people into his own elite killing force known as the death walker. As Max and Liz try to find a way to defeat this new foe, they fail to see the reemergence of an old enemy. 

Chapter One: The Land of the Dead

"Lost in a snow filled sky we'll make it alright to come undone now

We'll try to stay blind to the hope and fear outside

Hey child stay wilder than the wind and blow me in to cry."

~ Duran Duran 

A mob of crows flew overhead laughing harshly at the scene. Every now again one of them would swoop down and carry away a piece of flesh from the victims. At first they had tried to scare them off, but there had been just too many birds and too few of them. With a scientific detachment that would have made Darwin proud, Liz moved from body to body looking for scions. Her mind filtered out the human aspects. She willed it only to see clean or infected throats. Details like man and woman, young and old, never registered. After six years of fighting, she couldn't let it. 

An eerie silence fell over the tenement as the crows having no one to chase after them gave up and had glided away. A part of Liz wished for them to come back. Their cackles of life offset the images of death that surrounded her. Nervously, she started tapping her fingers against her notepad just to make noise. To remind herself that there indeed was another human alive in this area that the death walkers had thoroughly demolished. That's when she saw them. A toddler cradled in his mother's arms lying underneath a pile of brush. They seemed to be asleep, but Liz knew better. No one escaped when Khivar set his sights on them. Carefully, Liz pried the boy away from his mother's rigid grasp. A white scion cyst lay attached to his throat. Another child lost she thought silently. She could feel a bit of wetness begin to form in her eyes. Roughly, her fingers wiped at it. She was getting too close to this. A sort of emotional distance needed to be maintained. Immediately, she began to repeat the containment process. Getting lost in the white and blackness of science, a place where the moral ambiguities never strayed. She had one choice. Protocol called for the infected to be dismembered to prevent the rejuvenation process. All she had to do was to mark the body with a red chip. Then she would walk away and forget all about this little boy and his dead mother. As she placed the marker on the boy's forehead, a gust of wind began to blow a lock of the boy's hair back and forth. Over and over the golden strand danced on top of his head. Until the wind died away, the hair fell limply over the boy's left eye. Liz felt her heart constricted. She could remember when her, own son, Ben had been that age. A feeling of empathy washed over her hardened emotions. She knew it was wrong, dangerous even, but as she looked down at the bodies of mother and child a clear certainty awakened. She couldn't separate them in death like they had been separated in life. Her eyes looked for the others. Michael appeared to be busy checking another body, and Max had disappeared into the city's command center. 

She looked up to the sky watching as the sun drifted behind the clouds escaping momentarily from the carnage down below. "At least you still have a place to hide," she muttered to the retreating light as a large shadow fell over her. She could feel the little hair on the back of her neck stand up. Whipping around, she surveyed the scene once again. Bodies lay everywhere. Their face forever etched with panic while dark plumes of smoke still hovered around the rubble, but she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her. It was official. She was losing it. Taking a knife out of her pack, she slipped the blade underneath the cyst. The child's eyes opened and stared at her. In the back of her mind, she knew this was bad, very bad. Green energy began to burn in her fingers ready to defend herself, but she couldn't seem to move her hands. 

Sitting up the boy cocked his head at her awkwardly. "Will you be my mommy?" 

Liz could feel an immediate pressure pushing on her head and compelling her mouth to form one word "Yes." 

"Take off the scarf," the voice ordered growing deeper in need. 

Unwinding the knot at the base of her throat, Liz felt the scarf drop to her feet.

"Come down here."

The voice forced her to her knees. Vaguely, she noticed the cyst of the boy's throat growing larger. The white sack practically obscured his slender neck. A little tongue began to protrude from it. 

Her heart seemed to be beating double time in her chest. She tried to string together some form of thought, but her mind could grasp on to nothing tangible. Instead, it drifted in an ocean of darkness that crashed over any image of Ben and Max that tried to surface. 

"Wouldn't you just like it all to be over," the voice wrapped seductively around. "No more fighting a war you know you can't win."

"Yes," she sighed knowing all to well how their battle with Khivar would play out in the end. Out of all the gifts Max's healing had bestowed on her, it was the foresight she hated the most. A Pandora's Box she would never be able to close again. With ever vision, it had always been the same: an image of Earth from outer space. Its blue and green coloring sparkled with life. In one flash of brilliant light, a chorus of screams erupted. The planet exploded into a million fragments floating freely in the void of space. It had become her little dirty secret. Something she didn't even she share with Max. Tucked warmly in the arms of hope's hypnotic embrace, he still listened to its half truths and false promises. He still believed firmly that victory was inevitable, and after that life would go one. It was a potent narcotic she couldn't take away from him. She had learned long ago that the people she saved in one battle would be the first to die in the next. Her reward for having meddle in a sphere she had not right to be in. After all, she was only human. 

"I could give you rest from all of that," the voice sounded.

She felt a slight pinprick at her throat. 

"I need to hear you say it Liz," the entity ordered. 

"I…" but something held her back. 

"You'll fail them. You're too weak. All it took was a little child to capture you. Just give up now." The presence intensified in her head into all out roar. "YOU CAN'T WIN." 

"I can't w…" Liz began to repeat. A beam of energy shot through the air hitting the toddler. The body fell to the ground. Liz heard a high pitch scream as a small yellow flame engulfed the scion. Looking at the parasite fighting for its life, it hit her. She had almost invited it in. It had made her forgot about Max and her son. What the hell was wrong her? Her legs started running pass Michael, whose face was steady mix of shock and confusion, pass the stench of rotting corpses and the white flies mingling around them. She just needed to run to feel the burn in her legs. Finding a clump of tree, she sank down beside it savoring the hard trunk behind her back. It was strong and alive. 

Five minutes later she heard his voice, "You ok?" quite and tentative as he sat down beside her. Immediately, a feeling of warmth shot through her body. God, she loved his voice, but it wasn't enough to ward of the cold. Like an addict crashing back down to reality, the numbness soon returned. 

"I'm fine," she answered. Fine. Fine. Fine. For years she had been fine. She had been fine when she had discovered her parents' mangled bodies. Their lifeless eyes forever etched in a look of unadulterated terror, and not the tranquility of someone who had passed peacefully on into the next world. Greedily, guilt began to sink its greedy fangs into her soul as she wondered for the hundredth time why hadn't seen it. She had failed her parents, no killed them, but she was still fine. With an absolute certainty, she knew the Earth was going to be blown up into a million pieces and her son along with it, but she was fine. A little boy was never going to see his third birthday, but she had to be fine. There was no other thing she could be. 

She felt Max lace his finger through hers. Glancing down, she marveled how her hand fit in his, a creation of perfection in a world that had gone terribly awry. A world she couldn't even recognize anymore. 

His hand wrapped around her shoulder and brought her body flush with his own.

"I need you to talk to me," his chest vibrated against her shoulder as he talked. 

She buried her head against his chest. What was there say? Well, honey I almost became a death walker today. It appears I might have some suicidal tendencies. He had so many obligations. People depended on him. The last thing he needed was to have to worry about her. He needed her to be strong, and she couldn't even do that anymore. Her mouth felt suddenly dry as she tried to speak. Then it came out, the first lie she had ever told him, "The boy he was so young and…I just wanted to spare him the process, and the thing attacked me." Immediately, she wished she could take it back.

His brown eyes stared at her for a long time. "Liz," his voice seemed almost pained. 

She had to get away from this. "We need to get back to the caves. The others are probably looking for you," she said disentangling herself from his grasp. 

His hands stopped her. "When we get back you are going to talk me, really talk to me," Max stressed.

She shook her head. The funny thing was she couldn't remember how. 


	2. Chapter 2: Close Encounters

Author Notes 

Italics denote telepathic conversations 

{ } = flashbacks in dream form. I know that sound a bit weird but go with it. 

From now on, I'm going to have be taking a little artistic license with Ben's age. I just couldn't fit in what I wanted his character to be within the 2014 deadline. 

Thanks so much for the feedback. I'm abandoning Max and Liz just for a chapter to introduce the other main characters in the story. I'm a little weary about creating my own characters so let me know if they appear to Mary Sue thanks. 

Chapter 2: Close Encounters 

`This too is probable according to the saying of Agathon: "It is a part of probability

that many improbable things will happen."

__

~ Aristotle: Poetics 

Rubicon de Salva braced himself for another attempt. Standing outside the crack, he listened. 

Nothing. 

That was a good sign. There would be no obstacles in reaching his contact, but other thoughts began to intrude. Maybe he could just go home and forget about this. He was lizard after all. What did they actually think he could do? From overhead, a hawk let out a high pitched cry. Rubicon shivered in fear, the bird sounded impatient. Remembering all the gruesome scenarios she had promised to visit upon him, reluctant feet moved onward into the cavern. Perched on a ledge, he noticed dozens of people in sleeping back below him. 

Now what? 

There was no telling what bag Ben was in, and what he was going to do when he found him. The kid healed animals, he didn't talk to them that was Angel's ability, but she was gone now. Crawling towards the edge, Rubicon looked over. The sandy floor looked miles away to him, but in all actuality it was only about a foot. Carefully, he made his way down letting out a sigh of relief when the soft sand of the cavern's floor replaced the hardness of the rock.

Unbeknownst, to the lizard two yellow eyes watched his progress. "What are you doing?" The voice said good naturally. 

However, all Rubicon could see were the large white teeth staring at him. 

He sat down on his belly to hide his shaking feet. Courage. No one would respect him if he continued acting like a sniveling idiot. He imagined a towering Tyrannosaurus Rex. Weren't they distant relatives after all? You're a fierce desert creature he chanted in his head as he looked at the wolf straight in the eye. The creature was sitting down anyway. " Um.. the hawk sent me. Said I had debt really since the boy healed my leg." He waved his back leg in the air for dramatic effect. "I really thought I was a goner that day but my..." 

"Get on with it lizard," the wolf ordered. 

"Obviously not a fan of chitchat," Rubicon muttered. 

A flurry of noise sounded as the wolf rose onto his feet. 

It was up and it was moving. "Eek," Rubicon backed up.

"Relax, I don't eat lizards. I think better when I'm moving. Now about the hawk."

"Oh, yes. It was a lot rubbish actually. I really don't understand why they have to be so long winded." 

"The message."

"The jewel has been unearthed and the guard has fallen away. 

"What?" Shiloh cast a weary glance at Ben before returning to the lizard. 

Deciding to abandon the hawks' love of metaphors, he settled on the direct approach. "They discovered her true identity." He turned his eyes towards the boy. "He's not safe anymore. None of them are. Oh, and the hawk said something about a snake being hidden in the grass." 

"Great," the wolf's moving had turned into full out pacing. Every now and then, he would look down at the sleeping boy. 

A frown began to form on the boy's lips. 

"Does he even have a clue of what's coming?" Rubicon asked finally feeling a bit of sadness for the child. 

Shiloh never did answer him. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben Evans wrapped in his sleeping bag was totally oblivious to the events moving around him. Instead, his mind drifted in a state of restless dreams until it landed on the one memory he always came back to. It had always been a beacon for him, but now it made him feel strangely empty. He was six, and they were running from Khivar's invasion force. His mother's firm hand pulled him pass the empty shells of bombed out building and the groups of frantic people mulling around in the streets. Their faces etched in utter confusion upon discovering that their cars and any other technology no longer worked.

"What are we supposed to do now," Ben heard one woman sob. "How are we supposed to fight them?"

She like all the other had given up, but his mother wasn't one of them. Weaving through the crowd with a look of utter determination, he could feel the power emanating from her. She would never give up on his dad or Uncle Mike. In that moment, he never felt more proud of her. 

"What if we don't find them," Maria asked?

"We'll, find them," she answered. "I can already sense them a bit."

"I'm not getting a thing from Michael."

"That's because you're letting your emotions cloud the issue."

"Well, excuse me Liz the world is being conquered by a group of trigger-happy aliens. I think that's a valid reason for freaking out." 

His mother ignored her. "You ok Ben?"

He squeezed her hand in reply. She wasn't scared so there was no reason for him to be. They would find his dad and Uncle and everything would be fine. It always turned out fine in all the stories she used to read him. Didn't they all end with the sentence "and they lived happily ever after?"

A high pitched wail erupted over their heads. Ben let go of his mother's hand to cover his ears. Glancing upwards, he noticed a bright green web of light. They stopped moving, even his mother was not immune to the sight of this new threat.

"What is that Liz?" Maria whispered.

"I have no idea."

Stretching further and further, the bands spiked up in the air like a jump rope and then came crashing down. At that instant, the Earth lurched in response. A wave of energy tore through the street shattering the glass from the window. Ben felt his mother pick him up in her arms as she started to run. Over her shoulder, he watched the green light spike again. This time the ground rumbled loosening cement blocks from their foundations. Then things began to fly. The force uprooted a sickly little dogwood tree and a trash can with gum stuck all over its front. 

"Hold on to me Ben," his mother ordered. Slight tinges of panic evident in her voice. 

He wrapped his arms tighter around, but his fingers snapped open as another force flung him underneath a doorway. Dazed, he looked up just in time to see the ceiling come down over him and then he saw nothing for a long time. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Slowly, Ben opened his eyes. A bended doorframe stared down at him . He didn't feel hurt. Looking upwards, he realized for the first time he was trapped. Everything was dark just like the black crayon from his Crayola box. He hated the dark. The way it transformed harmless objects into full blown monsters. It made him feel weak. He didn't possess the ability to shoot blasts like his mother and Uncle Mike, and he couldn't warp like Troy. Yes, he could heal things but that wasn't a real power. 

From behind, he heard a slight scuffling noise. A green mass came flying through the air and attached itself to his chest. With his fingers he tried frantically to pry it off, but its tentacles just held on tighter while a third arm hovered above his throat. Ben watched with a sense of horror as a smaller creature peeked out of the appendage. Its white teeth glinted in the darkness. 

"Eaeta vearus abrieht," another voice rang out causing the second creature to run back inside the arm. The larger body turned its five head towards the source. 

Squinting his eyes, he could barely make out a girl with pigtails standing over him. 

"Nyaz demi nzarzul," the mass hissed at her. 

They were not speaking English, but he seemed to understand it all the same.

"I said let him go you Scion filth," she demanded.

Withdrawing from him, the creature slithered towards the rubble towards the girl. "You're a yellow bleeder," he croaked in surprise. "To think all this time and no one guessed it."

One moment the Scion seemed to be afraid and then the next Ben watched it move across the room and thrust its arms into his chest. Its dark energy immediately surrounded him. Forcing Ben, to let it dig deeper and deeper in his subconscious , but there was another presence. A stream of blue light collided into the dark, and for a long time it looked like it was winning. until the brightness diminished. That's when Ben felt his own green life force began to stir. Wrapping around the blue in a tight thread, it exploded causing the darkness to receded. 

"Whoa," he heard her muttered as she fell to her knees next to him. A bright half moon scar now blazed on her neck.

Instinctively, he reached up to heal it but his hands went right through her. 

"You're an angel aren't you?"

" No, I'm real sort of it," she explained. "How's your chest?"

He removed the burned scion from his stomach. Throwing it across the room. 

The wound had stopped bleeding. It was deep. There would be a scar, but for some he didn't want to heal it. 

He watched her rise to her feet. "Please don't leave me," he begged. 

She didn't. She stayed with him as the rocks floated away until he was back in his mother's embrace. 

She was there when he placed his hands on Shiloh's wound and healed the hole in his side:

"I would love to be able to that," she commented. 

"It's not a real power." 

"Why not?"

"It's not like I'm blasting anything." 

"It takes more strength to heal something Ben than to destroy it." Her black eyes stared at him for along time as if she was searching for some expression on his face. She frowned "Real power comes through love not force."

He had never really understood what she was getting at.

His dreams began to drift once again from the past to the present. To the time when he was no longer afraid of the dark and she no longer wore her hair in pigtails, but like always she stayed with him: 

"I hate being different," he had yelled one day in frustration. "Everyone one expects me to be a leader like my dad. What if I don't want to?"

"Then don't," she had replied. 

"But my parents want me to be like them."

"No, they want what any parent wants for you to be happy." 

"You sound like a greeting card Angel." 

"Well, are you finished throwing your fit?"

His cheeks reddened. He was kind actually childish, "yes."

She smiled. "Then I guess my advice worked then." 

She seemed to understand his powers better than he did. With her help, he learned to shoot blasts. It was hard to believe that he had only known her for six years. It seemed like her presence had always been linked with his own but that was all an illusion. When it came down, he knew next to nothing about her. Even her name, Angel, was a farce. Something he had made up after he had gotten tired of calling her hey you all the time:

"I just don't see why can't tell me your real name," he demanded. "If you trying to entice me with mystery, it's not working."

She looked up from the daisies she had made sprout in the sand. "First off, I'm not trying to entice you. I think you're too young for me anyway." 

"Only by five years," he added a little too quickly.

Her black eyes twinkled with mirth. "Been thinking about this have we?"

"No, I get a little tired of having to repeat Angel over and over because it something you don't respond to." 

She waved her hand over the daisies causing their white heads to wither up and die. "I have my reasons." 

"I'm beginning to think you don't even exist. ."

" I assure you, I do." 

Something stirred within him. He felt his anger spike. Later he would blame it on petty human emotions, but never did he realize it was the other side of his DNA exerting itself. "You could have fooled me. If you're real please tell me why you spend most of your time here with me as an astral projection." He thrust his hands through her body to annunciate his point. 

It happened so quickly he barely had time to register it. One moment he was standing the next he found himself lying on his back. Angel stood over him. Her black hair whipping fiercely in a gust of wind that had started to blow. "You have no concept what my life is like. If you had vaguest idea of what was happening, the fear of it would break you. That's why I come here. I come to escape because if I stayed, I would surely go mad." 

"I'm sorry." Ben got up. Driven by one need to make her feel better, he wrapped his arms around his shoulder. For the briefest moment, Ben could have sworn he felt the warmth of her skin, but then she vanished completely from his sight. That had been the last time he had seen her. 

Reaching out with his mind, he tried once again to find her. He expected a wall. There was always a wall, but this time he passed right through it. A fluorescent light now hummed overhead while two bodies blocked his view. He definitely wasn't on Earth. The Antarians orbiting in their ships were the only ones that had power now. 

"To think she had been here all the time. We would have never seen if not for the boy, but she isn't going to break. It could take years," the one spoke. 

"Years we don't have. The mines made her claustrophobic. Use that." 

The bodies parted to reveal a plastic partition. Ben could just make out a girl crouching in the corner. His blood chilled as he recognized the half scar raised on her neck. Going up to the plastic divider, he felt himself diffuse into the next room. 

She noticed him immediately. "You shouldn't be here. They might see you." Her tone sounded icy, distant, no trace of the warmth he was used to. 

"Please tell me what I can do to fix this."

"Absolutely nothing." 

He wouldn't accept that. There were always ways. He'd get his parents, and they could help. Somehow he caused this, and he had to make it right. 

Pushing herself off the ground, her tattered sleeves revealed black bruises and puffy pink burns. "Now you listen to me. Here's you're final lesson. You can't save everyone." 

The door squeaked loudly as two guards shoved a large wooden box into the room. Unlatching the hook, it looked like a hungry mouth awaiting its prey. A slight spasm crossed the girl's face. 

"I can get you out of here. Just tell me the name of the ship," Ben pressed.

She shook her head. Her eyes never leaving the box He saw her place her shaking hands behind her. 

"It's it going to be the easy or the hard way Serena," one of the guards asked?

Ben couldn't help the feeling of guilt that washed up in him. He had wanted her name and look what his stubbornness had caused her. 

One of the guards grabbed her by the hair and shoved her towards the wall. She punched him once in the mouth as she ducked his fist, the other jabbed a syringe into her thigh. 

Ben lunged at the them but he passed right through him and landed on the floor. Waving his hand, he tried to make the soldiers fall but nothing happened.

He watched helplessly as the guards picked Serena up and throw her into the box. A loud echo sounded as the slammed the lid over her. Through their connection, Ben could feel her rising fear. Yet, she still seemed more concern with him that on her own plight. 

__

Leave now, Ben please. 

I can't. 

Then you leave me no choice.

His eyes sprung open He was back in the cave. Surrounded by people, sleeping contently while who knows what was happening to her. Clearing, his mind he tried to reach her again. A sudden blue energy rushed through his head. He knew it was her. The blue whips surrounded his cerebral cortex. Gently prying apart, their connection. He fought her. The force intensified and in the end he gave up. She was just too strong. He recognized one word before she left him entirely.

__

Goodbye. 

He awoke again to Shiloh's concerned whimpering. 

"It's O.K.," he whispered to him. 

She was gone, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. If he had been stronger, maybe he could helped Serena like she had helped him. He tucked his pain and guilt far away. After all emotions were a human trait, and this was no time for being human. It wasn't going to help bring her back. 

From outside he could hear the low sounds of horns, his parents had returned


End file.
